Haaretz publisher wants sanctions. Justice minister demands loyalty, 20 year jail term. US politicians demand similar loyalty TO ISRAEL of US citizens and residents

The following a video of a presentation at a Haaretz conference in London, by Haaretz Publisher, Amos Schocken. This excerpt was provided by NJ Palestinian activist Mo Hamz. Schocken is sort of coming out of the closet: perhaps he has seen too many civilians slaughtered and humanity has creeped in. He made clear reference to Israel behavior in occupied territories, called out the settlements’ illegality, referred to the system as apartheid, referred to Palestine fighters as “freedom fighters,” talked about Israel’s refusal to recognize Palestine and called on the world to impose sanctions against Israel! It is hard to believe he said all of that!

The following is the transcript of this excerpt followed by the video of his excerpted statement.

The Netanyahu government doesn’t care about imposing a cruel apartheid regime on the Palestinian population.  It dismisses the costs of both sides for defending the settlements while fighting the Palestinian freedom fighter that Israel calls terrorists in a sense what is taking place now in the occupied territories and in part of Gaza is a second Nakba.  A Palestinian state must be established and the only way to achieve this I think is to apply sanctions against Israel leaders, against the leaders who oppose it and against the settlers in the occupied territories.

In contravention of international law because Israel has a government that opposes the establishment of a Palestinian State. Instead the Netanyahu government wants to continue and intensify illegal settlement in the territories that were meant for Palestinian State.  The only recourse with such disastrous government is to ask other countries to bring pressure to bear as they did in order to end the apartheid in South Africa.

 in December 3016 the UN Security Council passed resolution 2334 which states that territory cannot be acquired by force opposes settlement building including so-called natural growth of settlements and stipulates the dismantling of all settlements built since March 2001.  Not only did they continue building settlements but the present government also supports the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from parts of the occupied territories.  It is clear that Netanyahu wants to perpetuate the occupation and expand it too, 68 Israeli lawmakers voted against establishment of a Palestinian state.
Haaretz Publisher Amos Schocken

Below is the letter from the Justice Minister Yariv Levin to a government attorney asking for a law to be drafted to muzzle such a call for sanctions – the Israeli government is furious. They have already put sanctions on Haaretz canceling all government advertising contracts with the news service.

Fightbackbetter is covering this story in part because the action to criminalize the press and speech rights of one of Israel’s most prominent publishers is similar to the attempt to muzzle our protected speech rights here in the USA for addressing the similar concerns as the publisher expressed and calling for actions to force Israel to stop slaughtering people. While many here in the US movement against genocide might not have the same perspective as the Haaretz editor we are also facing sanction and criminalization of our own rights to tell the truth about Israel. Below we provide the full text of the minister’s call for the repressive legislation draft and a picture of a translator version of the JUstice Minster letter.

THe following sentence out of the Minster Levin’s letter shows parallels to the repressive legislation being pushed in the United States:

“A call to impose sanctions on Israel, its leaders, members of the security forces and Israeli citizens is a blatant violation of a citizen’s most basic duty of loyalty to the country. It means encouraging and promoting a move whose purpose is the actual denial of Israel’s right to self-defense. “

In the USA the overwhelming majority of US Senate and Congress as well as NJ Assembly and Senate are attempting to impose a false definition (IRHA) of anti-Semitism which includes not agreeing that Israel has a “right to exist”. Right to exist in US dominant narrative is closely linked to Israel’s proclaimed “right to self defense.” The narrative is that if Israel can not defend itself it can not continue to exist. So just like the Israeli Justice Minister believes that loyalty to Israel must be mandatory and failutre to be loyal punished harshly, the same loyalty TO ISRAEL is being demanded of us by both political parties. Laws are being proposed and passed that will lead to repression, including violent physical repression, perhaps including lethal military action against civil dissenters.

Israel is coming apart at the seams. Ruling sectors are starting to bale and more extreme repression of them is being demanded by the current regime there. Simliarly the repressive measures are being cranked up here to force us to be similarly loyal to Israel. Politicians are passing laws mandating that we agree to Israel’sright to exist and to self defense. Those falsely proclaimed rights for Israel are being used to justify disallowing our democratic right to demand an end to military and economic support of Israel. If Israel did not have such a free flowing supply of financial aid and weapons from the United States, it would force Israel use its own resources for its aggressive slaughterous pursuit of what it calls its right to exist. Perhaps it would not be able to even afford to be so murderously genocidal as it now is courtesy of the US tax payers.

Israel is manipulating the forced implementation of such laws in the US that in effect demand loyalty to Israel through pro-Israel lobby groups that donate from 100s of 1000s to millions to the President, the Vice President and most US Congress and US Senators. The other partner is the arms industry which benefits because Israel uses all the billions in aid provided by the US taxpayers to buy weapons from the arms industry – much of it from US based arms manufacturers. So the arms industry lobbyists also create this cess pool of dirty funding of politics flowing so that the taxes from working people fund Israel and substantially the billions provided come back to US companies selling the weapons.

Yariv Levin is so typical of the pro-Israel fanatic who believes anything is justified in the name of Israel, its right to exist and its right to self defense. Say something he does not like and boom – he wants a law written to imprison the person for 20 years. Every minor dissent from the actions and policies of Israel to them must be defined as anti-Semitic and laws must constantly be churned for greater and greater penalties for those who dare question anything at all about the genocide, the drive toward total MIddle East war, the subordination of the well being of the people and residents of the US to the genocidal demands of Israel. Just like the Democrat and Republicans in US Congress and US Senate, in NJ Assembly and Senate and the current president and the two prominent candidates to replace him – all – pretty much agree with Yariv Levin that loyalty to Israel is mandatory and severe punishments should be meted – be it for the publisher of Haaretz or for the campus members of Students for Justice in Palestine.

The following is the text of the translation followed by a picture of the English translation of Levin’s call for jail for the Haaretz publisher:

The loyalty

In honor of
Attorney Gail Beharev Miara
Legal Advisor to the Government

Hello,
At issue: Legislations against encouraging and supporting the imposition of sanctions on the State of Israel.

I would like to contact you regaqrding the matter in question as follows:

1. Last nit it was published that Haaretz newspaoer columnist Amos Shokan called on a solider to impose sanctions on the state of Israel and Israeli leaders. This is not the first time that Israel citizens act this way.
2. AS you know, fpr more than a year the State has been in a war on a number of fronts against murderous terrorism, including the Hamas organization. A call to impose sanctions on Israel, its leaders, members of the security forces and Israeli citizens is a blatant violation of a citizen’s most basic duty of loyalty to the country. It means encouraging and promoting a move whose purpose is the actual denial of Israel’s right to self-defense. This is especially serious when it is done during an existential war, and while are daughters and sons are held in inhumane conditions by a murderous terrorist organization.
3. In view of all this, I would like you to urgently forward to me the draft of law, which would state that action by Israeli citizens in order to promote or encourage the imposition of international sanctions on Israel, its leaders, the members of the security forces, and the citizens of Israel, will constitute a criminal offense punishable by a prison term of ten years. I will request that such an offense in time of war be an aggravating circumstance that will allow doubling the punishment.

Greetings, Mr. Yariv Levin, Deputy Prime Minister and Minster of Justice